Desperate to halt a probe into his
finances, former Delta State Governor James Ibori tried to bribe
anti-corruption boss Nuhu Ribadu in 2007 with $15m in cash in a bag so
heavy one man alone could not lift it, Ribadu told a London court on
Thursday.
Reuters quoted Ribadu as telling
the court that he pretended to take the bribe because he wanted the cash
as evidence to use against Ibori in a prosecution, but rather than keep
the money for himself he had it taken straight to the Central Bank of
Nigeria to be kept safe in a vault.
Ribadu told the court that about $1
billion flowed from federal government accounts into Delta State coffers
during Ibori’s eight years in power, and he estimated Ibori had stolen
or wasted more than half of that amount.
The charges to which Ibori pleaded
guilty amount to the theft of about $80m, but British prosecutors say
that was only part of his total booty, which was kept hidden via a
complex web of shell companies, offshore accounts and front men.
In late April 2007, a meeting was
arranged between the two men at a “neutral place”, the house of Andy
Uba, a close associate of outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Ibori arrived at the house with several
members of his staff and a very large black sack containing $15m in
cash. Ribadu said he watched as two of Ibori’s men lifted the heavy sack
and handed it over to his own EFCC staff. “It was a bag that an
individual could not carry alone,” he said.
The EFCC men drove the bag to the
central bank where the money was counted and boxed into smaller
containers. The court was shown photographs of the boxes of cash.
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